Garden Soon's garden consulting service is available in Economy, Beaver County at $85–$130 for an initial site visit. Varied terrain — the township spans from Ohio River terrace to hillside and elevated plateau sections. That's exactly the kind of site-specific detail that shapes what we recommend for bed placement, crop selection, and planting timing in Economy.
YouTube can teach you how raised beds work in general. What it cannot tell you is that the spot on the south side of your house actually only gets four hours of direct sun because the neighbor's oak canopy cuts it off by early afternoon — which we'll catch in twenty minutes of watching the light move. Generic gardening advice is usually written for zone 7 or 8, or averaged across the whole country, which means the timing information is wrong for western Pennsylvania, wrong for the WV panhandle, wrong for central Ohio. When we come to your site, we're looking at your specific drainage situation, your soil texture, whether you have a frost pocket at the base of that slope, how your water access affects where it makes sense to put beds. We're asking questions no algorithm asks: what's your water source, how far are you willing to carry a hose, do you have dogs? We've also seen the mistakes that get made repeatedly in this region — the biggest one being planting warm-season crops too early, which one late frost can wipe out entirely. Site-specific, in-person assessment gets you answers tuned to your actual conditions.
For Economy specifically: silty clay loam near the Ohio River corridor, transitioning to heavier clay loam on elevated sections away from the river. Established residential areas with decades of mowing and limited aeration show significant compaction in the top few inches of the soil profile.
A standard consultation includes the full site visit — sun assessment, drainage review, soil evaluation — plus a hand-drawn layout sketch, a plant list matched to your specific conditions and goals, a timing guide for your last frost zone, and soil amendment recommendations. If you're building raised beds, we walk through what to fill them with. The session runs about an hour and a half to two hours on site, and we cover everything you need to actually put a garden in the ground with confidence.
Before: you want to grow your own food. Maybe you've thought about it for years, or tried it once and it didn't go well. You have a yard, some ambition, and a lot of unanswered questions — where exactly to put beds, what soil to use, what will realistically grow in your conditions, and when to plant what. During: we come out, walk the site with you, map the sun, talk through what you want to grow and what your yard can support. We sketch a layout on paper, put together a plant list with varieties suited to this region, and work through the timing so you know what to start in late winter, what goes in the ground in early spring, and what has to wait until after last frost. We talk soil mix if you're doing raised beds — roughly equal parts compost, topsoil, and perlite or vermiculite for drainage and air. After: you have a paper sketch of your garden, a written plant list, timing notes, and soil recommendations. You have a plan you can hand to someone at the garden center and actually execute. And if questions come up six weeks in, a follow-up visit is available.
The initial consultation ($85–$130) covers a full site visit of one and a half to two hours, sun and drainage assessment, a hand-drawn layout sketch, a written plant list with region-appropriate varieties, timing guidance for your last frost zone, and soil amendment recommendations. You walk away with documents in hand. The full garden plan with follow-up ($225–$375) includes everything in the initial consultation plus a more detailed written design plan and a second site visit two to three weeks later, when questions have had time to develop. If you've already had a consultation and just need us back for a specific issue or a season check-in, a standalone follow-up visit is $65 to $95 for an hour on site. Remote consultations — phone or video, useful for off-season planning or customers outside our regular service area — are $50 to $75 per hour. All pricing is honest and upfront; we discuss scope on the initial call before anything is scheduled.
Yes — Garden Soon provides in-person garden consulting in Economy. We come to your property, walk the site together, and produce a plan specific to your conditions. Call (724) 201-9484 or use the contact form to schedule.
We start by walking the yard together and mapping where direct sun actually falls through the day — that determines where beds can go and what will produce well. Varied terrain — the township spans from Ohio River terrace to hillside and elevated plateau sections. From there we sketch a layout on paper during the visit and put together a written plant list matched to your conditions and what you want to grow in Economy.
The most common causes in this region are not enough sun, planting warm-season crops before the last frost date, and inconsistent watering — each of those will tank a garden on its own, and they often show up together. In western Pennsylvania, one late frost after tomatoes go in the ground can wipe the whole planting. Walking the site with us lets us identify which of those factors applied to your specific situation and build a plan around avoiding them this time.
The consulting itself is advice and planning — we don't sell seeds, but we do connect customers with our community plant pickup program, which offers vegetable transplants ready to go in the ground at the right time for this region. If you're getting a consultation in late winter or early spring, we'll often talk through what plant starts make sense for your plan and whether the pickup is a good fit for getting those plants.
Winter is actually a great time to schedule, because planning ahead of the season is more useful than trying to catch up once things are in the ground. We can walk a site in November, December, or January — the sun angle is different but that's actually useful information — and build a full planting plan and soil prep schedule so you're ready to act the moment the ground is workable in March. Remote consultations by phone or video are also available in winter at $50 to $75 per hour for customers who want to plan from wherever they are.
Customers who invest in getting their garden right tend to look up at some point and notice the lawn around it. It's a natural progression — once you've thought carefully about soil health, sun exposure, and what's actually growing versus what should be, the surrounding turf starts to look like the same conversation. Weed pressure from the lawn migrates into beds. Compacted soil in the yard affects drainage near the garden. The same attention to soil pH and fertility that helps a vegetable garden also applies to the twenty feet of grass around it.
Customers who do a garden consultation in Economy often connect with these other services:
Year-round turf health — fertilization, weed control, grub prevention, and winterizer timed to the growing season.
Weekly or biweekly mowing with edge trimming and blowdown. We cut at the right height for cool-season turf and adjust for growth rate.
One-time reclamation for neglected or jungle properties. We bring equipment rated for heavy material and haul everything out.
Spring and fall cleanup — leaf removal, debris, bed edging, ornamental cutbacks, and disposal.
Family- and pet-safe perimeter spray applied around the home exterior — foundation band, entry points, and window frames.
Garden Soon
Licensed & insured in PA · Rated 4.8★ on Google
Providing Vegetable Garden Design in Economy, PA and surrounding areas.